Overview

The first in an enthralling new mini-series of novellas from the #1 bestselling authors of the House of Night, Dragon’s Oath tells the story behind the House of Night’s formidable fencing instructor – the love that will transform him, and the promise that will haunt him

In early 19th century England, long before he’s a professor at the Tulsa House of Night, Bryan Lankford is a troublesome yet talented human teen who thinks he can get away with anything… until his ...

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This Book

Overview

The first in an enthralling new mini-series of novellas from the #1 bestselling authors of the House of Night, Dragon’s Oath tells the story behind the House of Night’s formidable fencing instructor – the love that will transform him, and the promise that will haunt him

In early 19th century England, long before he’s a professor at the Tulsa House of Night, Bryan Lankford is a troublesome yet talented human teen who thinks he can get away with anything… until his father, a wealthy nobleman, has finally had enough, and banishes him to America. When Bryan is Marked on the docks and given the choice between the London House of Night and the dragon-prowed ship to America, he chooses the Dragon – and a brand new fate.

Becoming a Fledgling may be exciting, but it opens a door to a dangerous world.... In 1830’s St. Louis, the Gateway to the West, Dragon Lankford becomes a Sword Master, and soon realizes there are both frightening challenges and beautiful perks. Like Anastasia, the captivating young Professor of Spells and Rituals at the Tower Grove House of Night, who really should have nothing to do with a fledgling…

But when a dark power threatens, Dragon is caught in its focus. Though his uncanny fighting skills make him a powerful fledgling, is he strong enough to ward off evil, while protecting Anastasia as well? Will his choices save her—or destroy them all?

What People Are Saying

From the Publisher

“Now that I know about Dragon's life with Anastasia, I understand the man's need for vengeance. The reason for his cold efficiency in duty makes perfect sense. With this new novella series, readers will receive insights that may enhance the full-length [House of Night] series.” – Huntress Reviews (5 stars!) on Dragon's Oath

Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble

House of Night fans will welcome the arrival of this new mini-series, which opens the book on the personal histories of some of the series' most mysterious characters. Struggling for survival at the center of Dragon's Oath is Dragon Lankford, whose self-chosen exile to antebellum St. Louis sharpens his perceptions and, no less importantly, his fighting skills. An absorbing back story in an amazing series. (P.S. If you haven't yet entered the House of Night, wait no longer. This series by a mother-and-daughter team has already sold almost 12 million copies.)

From the Publisher

“Now that I know about Dragon's life with Anastasia, I understand the man's need for vengeance. The reason for his cold efficiency in duty makes perfect sense. With this new novella series, readers will receive insights that may enhance the full-length [House of Night] series.” – Huntress Reviews (5 stars!) on Dragon's Oath

From the Publisher

“Now that I know about Dragon's life with Anastasia, I understand the man's need for vengeance. The reason for his cold efficiency in duty makes perfect sense. With this new novella series, readers will receive insights that may enhance the full-length [House of Night] series.” – Huntress Reviews (5 stars!) on Dragon's Oath

More by this Author

P.C. Cast is an award-winning fantasy and paranormal romance author, as well as an experienced speaker and teacher. With her daughter Kristin Cast, she is the author of the House of Night novels, including Awakened, Burned and Hunted. Cast was born in the Midwest, and as a girl fell in love with mythology. After high school, she joined the U.S. Air Force, then taught high school for 15 years before retiring to write full time. Cast’s novels are New York Times bestsellers and have been awarded the Oklahoma Book Award, YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers, Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, the Prism, Holt Medallion, Daphne du Maurier, Booksellers’ Best, and the Laurel Wreath. Ms. Cast lives in Oklahoma, where she is a member of the Oklahoma Writers' Hall of Fame. She splits her time between her ranch and midtown Tulsa where she has a home just down the street from the House of Night...

Kristin Cast is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author who teams with her mother to write the House of Night series. She has stand-alone stories in several anthologies, as well as editorial credits. Currently Kristin attends college in Oklahoma where she is focusing on attaining her dream of opening a no kill dog rescue shelter in midtown Tulsa.

Read an Excerpt

Interviews & Essays

When + how did the two of you first meet?

PC: Kim's going to have to help me with this one! I think we met about fifteen years ago through our mutual friend, Teresa Miller. Tess is Director of the Center for Oklahoma Poets and Writers, and she is one of the reasons Tulsa has such a vibrant, well connected author/artist community. I can't remember which event it was. Maybe one of the Celebration of Books festivals? Kim? Help? I do remember having an instant connection with Kim, and we have been good friends ever since.
*As a side note here: Kim has been helping me brainstorm my way through plots of my novels for more than a decade. I cannot count the number of times I've been stuck in a plot corner, or confused about how a story should go, and I've gone to Kim's house, poured myself a glass (or three or four) of wine, and just started talking with Kim about a manuscript. Kim gets visual images when I tell stories, and she'll say, "Oh! Oh! Wait, I have an idea!" and then she'll describe to me what she's seeing. Many, many times her artist's eye has helped me find my way out of an author's dead end!

KIM: Oh, I DO remember, and you're right - it was at the OK Celebration of Books! We met at a sushi restaurant, as you were helping Tess host Janis Ian by rounding up a group of Tulsa writers/illustrators to have dinner with her. We got to talking that night, as well as during the rest of the conference, and I don't think I ever laughed as hard as when you told me all about a scene in a book you had just finished titled Goddess by Mistake. It later became Divine by Mistake, and fans will probably start grinning about now when I mention a certain red-tressed-Broken Arrow-English teacher who is swept into another world where she is cornered into ruling as their goddess... and meets her future mate, who happens to be a centaur...
And yes, PC has always been enthusiastically welcomed at our home with a hug and a choice - red or white? - while we toast to her characters and play with plots.

What is the creative process like while you’re illustrating the characters? How do you determine what they look like?

PC: For my part all I do is talk with Kim about the characters. It's very weird that what she sees in her head is so much like what I make up in my head.

KIM: PC is an expert in description, whether it ends up in the text or not. Many times, we simply chat about a scene or character, since we're so often on the same page (okay, a weak literary joke, but an accurate metaphor for the moment). We discovered we enjoyed (and enjoy!) many of the same genres and titles as kids, sometimes to the point we quote passages to each other from favorite scenes. It's a good mix: PC combines our shared literary history with contemporary celebrities (and their more popular roles) then throws in classic archetypes. The result gives me instant visual inspiration and, as her fans know, provides very accessible characters.

How do you decide which scenes [from the book] are illustrated?

PC: Kim and I discussed this chapter by chapter. Some of them were easy to decide on, like the illustration of the dragon ship. Some went through several incarnations, like the chapter that has the magickal wine illustration. That one started with cats, didn't it Kim? And also the chapter where you see Anastasia dancing. Kim gave me several ideas/choice for that one, too. But, basically, I bow to Kim's artistic eye. She's a talented professional, and when she "sees" a scene, it's usually the perfect one to bring alive.KIM: I read the entire text first, just taking notes when the story arcs. Each scene emerges in my mind as a keyframe, like they do in movies; I ask, "What's the one illustrative moment that visually enhances this chapter best?" Sometimes there are several, and PC and our agent, Meredith Bernstein, will process with me to choose. Sometimes it's a no-brainer, an "Ah ha!" sort of moment, and I have no question in my mind's eye: "That's it. That's absolutely it."
The "magickal wine illustration" began with a cat reaching up to bat one of the emerging roses as it bloomed from the glass, but PC and Meredith's feedback was right - too cutesy, and detracting from the mystery of the moment. There are many times when working alone is great, and many when it's a drag; I can lose perspective without a trusted mirror. PC is my trusted mirror!

Do you communicate regularly throughout the illustration process?

PC: Yes! (Well, we communicate regularly because we're girlfriends anyway!) Kim and I talk about the chapters and then she shows me little tiny rough sketches that to her look like stick figures. To me they're better than anything I could draw, so I always think it's cool to see the "rough" work. Then I pick one of the sketches and Kim redoes it bigger and better. Then she shows it to me when it's still at the point she can use it but make changes/additions. Sometimes I ask her to add a detail - like on the ritual illustration I asked that we can see a little more of Anastasia and Dragon. Then, like magick, she finishes and they're lovely pieces of art!KIM: Yes! (Remember - red or white?) :)). I also like to sneak in little bits of PC and her life if I can. In The Fledgling Handbook, she had just gotten back from visiting Scotland and had a pair of rocks from an ancient queen's cairn, so I put them in the big illustration for the Dark Daughters. She also has a dragon tattoo on her back, and I used elements of that for Dragon's page at the end of Dragon's Oath. Those facts are for hard-core fans, but hey! They're fun to know, right?
As for beginnings, I do start out with these really rough, quickie sketches called "thumbnails" for my future finished pieces. I've always shared those embarrassing, amateur-looking beginnings with PC; she's such fun because she's totally behind me and enthusiastic and tickled, so I get twice as inspired talking it over with her. Then she claps and squeals and is delighted with the finals, so I think I've upped Leonardo or something. It's great.

How many iterations do you normally go through until the character looks "just right"?

KIM: Oh, wow, that's a hard question. Sometimes I get lucky, and I nail the character the first sketch and can develop a second, more formal drawing, then transfer to the final. This happens, um, maybe once in a blue moon?
The rest of the time, it's usually 5-6 sketches before the final, but it's not unheard of for it to be 10 or more. If I'm illustrating a children's book and the character is seen in several scenes, I really work hard to keep him/her consistent; that's probably the greatest challenge.

Kim – how much research do you do before sketching the scenes?

KIM: I know it's unoriginal to say "It depends," but it really does. If my character is from another era, I research clothing and hair styles; if I am to represent them in a medium common to their time, I might study block prints or marble statues. I really like to have a sense of authenticity to a character - I'll download tons of images from the internet, just for studies; I'll kidnap friends and have them play dress up and take photographs (which I share with no one, so they don't have to worry). For backgrounds, I'll look at a country's architecture, history, and culture, which I did a lot in The Fledgling Handbook 101. For Dragon's Oath, I kept in mind that the vampyres slept during the day, so the scenes needed to be drawn as if they were happening at night or, at the latest, the very beginning of dawn.
When I read Dragon's Oath for the first time, I read it purely for the pleasure of enjoying the story itself; as an ardent HON fan, I already knew of Dragon's loss from the series, so this novella added dimension and richness to his tale. The second time I read the story, I allowed myself to picture each scene in my mind - and I took notes about it. These characters may be nearly immortal, but they are at the beginning of such immortality and, therefore, they are like any other young couple.
PC and I discussed how she saw them physically - vibrant, playful, Anastasia with thick blonde hair down to her waist, Dragon with "attitude" and lithe physique. In her story, their courtship is charming, and their first kiss full of the magic (or, as PC Cast says, "magick") anyone would want to experience. I wanted to capture all of this.
Part of magic is often found in the moments where things are not said, when gestures are suspended for a moment in reality... but forever in a heart. I wanted to create that moment for these characters, to trace their body language and show the second they begin to fall in love.
To execute this, I toyed with using hands - those revealing appendages we should watch (more than eyes) if we want information. I wanted them "touching-but-not-touching", intimate, an unspoken promise. Above all, I wanted it to show defenses lowered in a subtle way.
These are a few of the sketches I made: him approaching from behind her, sword down; her handing him a sunflower; her beginning to lift the face of a sunflower up towards him. But these weren't quite where I wanted to go.

I wanted more of their symbols integrated into the piece: his sword, her flower. Finally, I put it all together, and after a few more thumbnails, drew this sketch:

With PC's approval, I then "cast" the scene. I had my husband stand by a friend, and at the last second, decided to photograph it near sunset. My thought was that these characters could be walking, side by side, as the sun either rose or set before them - an added romantic touch, instead of having them with the nighttime backdrop. Here's the photograph:

With a few alterations - matching Dragon's sword with the one on the cover, cropping and changing clothing some, and making Anastasia's hand that of a girl rather than a more mature woman - I completed the illustration now in the book.
It's my favorite, too - his sword is lowered, but in front of them to defend her in an instant. Her flower is held back, slightly behind her skirt, waiting to be brought forth.
This is how they live for me.

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Too pricy

I can't believe that B&N is charging MORE for the Nook version than the paper version! That's insane. Add to that the fact the price for this novella is the same as a full length book and I won't be buying this one.

35 out of 44 people found this review helpful.

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REALLY

How about the authors finish the house of nights books first before they go adding to them, really, they have been dragging out for so long it is ridiculous. At first I loved the house of night books but the last few have been quick reads and leave you hanging, only to wait a year for another small part of the story.

27 out of 32 people found this review helpful.

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eodwife

Posted July 14, 2011

Disappointed

I felt that this was way over priced. The story was okay, but if i had realized what it was before i bought it i would have never spent that much on it. Definitely not worth the money.

20 out of 21 people found this review helpful.

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theReader278

Posted June 23, 2011

I Also Recommend:

CAn't wait to read this

I love the series. Can't wait to read this one.

19 out of 25 people found this review helpful.

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kjstens

Posted August 21, 2011

Save the money

This is a short story, priced as a novel. An obsene grab for money, whether by Barnes and Noble or the author, it's inexcusable.

15 out of 15 people found this review helpful.

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This is as enthralling and as spellbinding as the main series.

Dragon Lankford is the Sword Master of the Oklahoma House of Night in St. Louis. He is also a vampire wrapped up in enigmas and aloofness, but he was not always that way. In 1830 England, he was called Bryan, the third son of the Earl of Lankford. Tired of his misbehaving and bailing Bryan out of trouble, his father exiled his teenage son to America. Before he went on the shop a vampire Marked him. He has to go to school for four years and if the fledgling survives the Change he will be a full fledged vampire.

Dragon attends the school at the Tower Grove House of Night where several of his student peers have crushes on him. In 1833 twenty-two years old Professor of Spells and Rituals Anastasia casts a spell to enable those fledglings who are attracted to the nobleman to see him as he really is. He is interested in her and surprises her when he helps her with the spell focused on him. They fall in love, but the human Sheriff Biddle and a dark magical creature want to destroy him and they believe killing Anastasia will do that. He comes at his enemies with vengeance though he promised an oath of mercy to his perfect love Anastasia the former Quaker who was and still is his soul mate.

The fencing master in the young adult House of Night series, Dragon has always been a riddle to readers and fledglings. This is the beginning of his "biography" mostly in St. Louis during the Jacksonian Era. The paranormal historical story line is exciting as the unlikely pair of Dragon the sword master (even as a student) and Anastasia the pacifist Quaker of spells fall in love, but are Destined for trouble. This is as enthralling and as spellbinding as the main series.

Harriet Klausner

10 out of 18 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted January 8, 2012

Great book but too short

This was a really good book and gave much needed info into who Dragon is and was but it would have been better if it was longer to give us more. I also liked tgat it told us more about Anastasia. The sad thing is that it is only 84 Pages and the same cost of the other >200 page books in the series.

7 out of 7 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted January 1, 2012

Good read

My only complaint is that this is too short, i could read about the house of night characters forever. It des help explain someof wht is in Dragons head. It isnt a must read as part of the story line but it is a good bit of extra interesting background info on Dragon :)

5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted December 25, 2011

Seems good

Its pretty

4 out of 11 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted January 7, 2012

Good but we need more

Very short i liked but would have been better named a short story not a novl

3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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ChickenSS

Posted January 22, 2012

Highly Recommended

I learned backgroung knowledge about a character in the series House of Night. This helps in knowing the why a character is acting the way they are in the other books. This was very enjoyable and I am looking forward to the next one.

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted January 1, 2012

Characters

It's amazing to finally see these side characters develope into an actual being rather than just a name and face. The book was very refreshing, and completing for Lankford's character.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted December 18, 2011

Great

Great book get to know other charatcers in the series!

2 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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Recommend

This book was really good. It really helps the reader to understand the dynamics of Dragon's character. However, I wish that it would have maybe been a little longer so it could explain how Dragon and Anastasia ended up in Tulsa or went into maybe just a little more detail about their life together. All in all it's almost a must to fully comprehend what is going on in Dragon's head in Destined.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted September 13, 2011

It was okay

I liked it but I would of rather seen an ending to the original series first, before they explain everyone else's stories. I do wish it was longer for the price it was.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted May 19, 2012

Any SheKit

I Can rp any she-kit!! just tell me the name descripton and clan

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted May 19, 2012

To lunarheart

Do you know where lilyfang is~clodyeyes

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted May 17, 2012

A litle kit

She crawls in hurt

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted April 22, 2012

Good Book

This book is kinda short but really good. I liked it a lot. GOOD BOOK

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted March 31, 2012

The Cast team does it agian.

In this novella, P.C. and Kristin Cast have revealled the early life of Dragon. This story was so lovely and well written. Dragon's change is incredible, and Anastasia was a wonderful character.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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